Extinguished Light
by eloquant.grace
Summary: Lilly ... ' he asked quietly as if he was waiting for a response. He cleared his throat and started again. 'Lilly...,' he sighed quietly to himself 'You were never alone.'


**AN: this was written at a ridiculous time of night so I didn't have to study ... the quality is probably really bad appologies in advance yeah. Oh and if someone wants to take this and rewrite it ... GO FOR IT haha I honestly don't mind. ummm I hope you all have a good night ... or day even though I've probably wasted your time=) oh and i dont own any of the charchters and whock nock either ... sorry**

**Ps: after reading it again I realised I was a horrible speller so I fixed them up ... sorry and enjoy =)**

**. . . . .**

It always had seemed ironic. They called it a celebration of life, but to him it was the most sullen celebration he had been too. He never knew that she was sick. She just left one day without a trace. He never got the chance to say goodbye. Oliver stared into the wall of the small town church. Dark circles encompassed his tired eyes. He watched the people as they came and went, saying their final farewells to the girl they all knew as Lillian Truscott. It had been almost 2 years since Oliver had seen her. He looked at the fragile but beautiful girl he once loved. As emotions swept over him he bit his bottom lip swallowing back any tears that may have been trying to escape. He had been invited over to Lilly's place that afternoon to help her mum pack up the rest of her room. As the crowd in the chapel dissipated he inhaled deeply and sighed. Getting up, he began to walk the familiar journey over to his once best friends house.

**. . . . .**

As Oliver walked up the stairs to his friend's bedroom he felt numb. The sob's from her mother echoed down the narrow passage way. Knocking gently on the door, he entered the room he had become familiar with since first grade. Mrs Truscott barely looked up at him to acknowledge his presence.

'I'm ... I'm sorry for your loss,' Oliver stated as his voice cracked. Mrs Truscott looked up at him, blackened tears streamed down her face and slowly fell to her lap.

'I didn't even know ...' she whispered 'I didn't know she was sick.' Oliver looked at his best friends mom.

'Mrs T, why don't you go get your self a coffee?' he offered. 'I'll make a start up here.' Mrs Truscott nodded in agreement realising Oliver probably needed time to mourn as well. As she left she gently squeezed his shoulder and then shut the door.

Oliver looked around at the familiar room. It hadn't changed since two years ago. It hadn't changed since the day that she had decided to cut herself off from all her friends and disappear. The smells were the same, the pictures were the same. Even the picture he had drawn her in grade one with his 64 pack of crayons. He kneeled beside her bed and sighed.

'Lilly ... I don't know if you can hear me anymore ... but I've been going through some tough times too,' Oliver spoke out loud.

He wasn't sure if she could hear him, but somehow he knew it needed to be said.

'Lilly, I need you.' Oliver said finally allowing himself to breakdown. Without thinking he reached under her bed and pulled out a red notebook. He didn't need to be told what it was ... he already knew. It wasn't a diary, but it was close. As his fingers fumbled to find a page, the book seemed to mysteriously open to one that had been recently written. Oliver looked up to the ceiling as if asking for approval before he dared to continue and read. Shaking he brought the book closer to his tear filled eyes and began to read the story written by his friend.

**. . . . .**

Extinguished Light

I never thought I'd be here, I never thought I'd be alone. I never thought that it would happen, and if it did, not to me. Not just yet anyway.

You hear them talk about it all the time, as if it's the norm. But how can it be normal? What is normal? Living a lie? Deceiving those you love? Those you trust? I always knew this town was lacking, but I grew to love it. Just as I became a part of the town, the town became a part of me. I never thought that its flaws would be mine as well. I never knew. It's sad, and it's good. I just never thought that this town would be the town where I married death.

So I've been waiting, and waiting. It was like waiting for that 'Dear John' letter that never arrived. My heart was anticipating the break, yet no cushion would soften this blow. No glue would be able to fix the shards that would fly like daggers through my chest, aching for the ones I would leave behind. It was painful waiting. Painful in anticipation, yet I waited and waited. Slowly the leaves outside would turn yellow and the soft autumn breeze would begin to blow. Eventually the breeze would grow stronger, and one by one, the trees freely shed their leaves like tears gliding effortlessly to the earth below. More time passed, and I still waited. Now the last leaf on the tree outside was left. Determination. Who'd have thought I'd use that word in relation to a leaf. It was a determined leaf, refusing to give into the strengths of the subtle breeze. It would not give the wind the pleasure of tearing it away from its life source. This leaf held onto life, refusing to be blown away and forgotten like its sibling leaves below. It held on. In this leaf, I saw hope.

Hope. This is what gave me time. Each day I would watch that leaf hold on with all its might, until eventually it was gone. The day, the years, the months. I still waited, but the letter departing me from death was not meant to be nor would an announcement of its presence come, or so I thought. They called this remission. I called it divorce. Had I divorced death without my knowledge, or had death divorced me. It was these thoughts that gave me more hope. Hope, a fatal flaw.

When people are in distress they often see hope as the light at the end of a tunnel, my hope allowed me to do this. But death is a peculiar creature, just as I had began to believe I was free from his bound contract of mortality, I realised something else. The light at the end of my tunnel was but a candle, easily extinguished leaving me back in the dark with nothing but a stream of smoke billowing its way through the air into nothingness once more.

Mirages. I've often wondered if those few brief moments I saw that light, that flame, that hope were really an illusion. An illusion caused by what I wanted rather that what would happen. It is said that mirages can occur almost anywhere. They can even lead a shepherd who has lived years in the barren desert to believe that there is an abundance of water ... when really there is none at all. I wonder if remission is what they call a mirage. It offers that same hope; it provides that little glimpse of hope allowing you to take that extra step, complete that extra mile ... when in reality all you have done is ended up is disappointed. When you reach that place where you were so sure you would find what you wanted, you find nothing. There is no lagoon to reward you work, no water to quench that extra thirst for life ... instead just barren desert. The same barren desert that will continue to taunt the mind with a mixture of thought and illusions disguising reality. This desert is called life.

Chances. So much of life is based on chances. The chance of right or wrong, left or right, life and death. And from these chances come statistics. Mere numbers and records. Nothing special and really nothing different, just symbols with meaning, or numbers with value, but no memory. It's taken me a while, but I realise it now. I'm one of those numbers. A number and not a name, that is all. I am sitting with my high school class. We are the seniors of this year. I look around me. They say in five years time one of us will be dead. I look and see their faces. All of them. In a youthful innocence they look out, beyond the horizon. This is where their future lies. Their eyes shine bright with potential. They are ready to step forward into the unknown, but I am left behind. I'm paralysed and frozen. With determination carved into their faces they continue, but I cannot. I stand at the starting line, at the beginning of the race unable to move. They are barely visible against the bright light of what they call potential. It is brighter than the sun. A tear escapes and rolls bitter-sweetly down my check. They are gone now, but I know that they're safe. This is all that matters.

People often wonder how I see life. Why I see it the way I do. We'll its easy. I was born a statistic. A _one_ out of five for this, or the _one_ out of three for that. A statistic, a proportional number stating chance. The one instance where some poor soul was chosen to be that _one_ out of however many. I knew I was born the 'one' chosen for death. Over the years he has become my friend and I him in return. I still wait patiently for his arrival, but each day I wait he still does not come. He is busy. I understand. So I wait, and each day with the rising sun I am greeted by the same message. 'Death could not come today, live on, live on, live on.' As my chest rises and falls with every breath I am somewhat disappointed that death has not come just yet. For two years I have waited, I am ready to go. I always am. I have seen many around me been taken by death, but he seems to leave me alone. He does not require my companionship yet. I have found that with some death can be impatient, but today death's knock is not knocking for me, and I am left to lie still, impatiently awaiting his call. The sun sets again, and I live by mortal standards, but in death I am dying, and in waiting I have already died. Each day that passes I expect death less and less. I am free from his call, but I know not for long.

I have waited over two years for his presence and today I was not disappointed. Today he came for me, his long lost friend. And when the nail of death knocked at my door, I welcomed him in and we were strangers no more. Then when I fell to my knees Death gave me his hand, his eyes were full of sorrow I was leaving this land. So then hand in hand we began this, a new journey. Death and I had been joined by a fate and led by the stars until he stopped and stared. I paused waiting for him to lead but he would not. He could not. His journey was over. I looked back to him asking for reassurance but he stood still. His eyes continued to gaze out, searching over the horizon. A sense of empathy crept over me. He could not move forward into the bright distance, just like I could not move beyond into a future of bright potential. I sighed, watching death as he longed to have what he could not. To him, this mirage was real, the lagoon was not an illusion but another unattainable desire. Death stood watching the ones whom he had parted with previously travel down their set paths, his eyes showed little emotion. His job was done.

I took one step out. My first step alone. As I did I could no longer feel his glance upon my back, and when I turned I knew that he was gone. Death, just a phase, a memory that too would eventually fade. In life I had once married death, or so death had married me. But when I parted with death I was no longer alone, just one step closer on the everlasting path of immortality.

**. . . . .**

Oliver closed the book. Lilly might have known she was going to die, but there was one thing she didn't know.

'Lilly ... ?' he asked quietly as if he was waiting for a response. He cleared his throat and started again. 'Lilly...,' he sighed quietly to himself as he pulled of his wig, 'You were never alone.'

**. . . . .**

(One week later)

Miley stood in the graveyard. In front of her were two stones. Both marked the resting place of her best friends Lillian Truscott and Oliver Oken. She stared at the concrete stones, ironic cold symbols for two of the warmest people she had ever met. It seemed that cancer always found a way to take the people she loved, but somehow she was comforted by the fact that both Lilly and Oliver would always be able to rest together. Lilly's mum had found Oliver asleep on the floor the day that he had offered to help pack up Lilly's room, only this time he didn't wake up. Miley let the tears form gentle streams down the side of her face as she turned to leave the grave yard. Goodbyes were always the hardest part.

As she left, the sun began to cast shadows in the graveyard, and there, side by side stood two relatively new stones. Markers of the short lives lived, and the friendship between them that would never fade. But if you had cast away the darkened shadows of the setting sun, you would have seen that in front of the two cold stones lay a donut, a lilly and a 64 pack of crayons.


End file.
